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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.0698 Saturday, 24 March 2001
[1] From: R. A. Cantrell <
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Date: Wednesday, 21 Mar 2001 07:30:46 -0600
Subj: SHK 12.0678 Re: Callous Cash Payment Values
[2] From: Sean Lawrence <
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Date: Wednesday, 21 Mar 2001 08:08:52 -0800
Subj: Re: SHK 12.0678 Re: Callous Cash Payment Values
[3] From: Michael Meyers <
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Date: Wednesday, 21 Mar 2001 21:47:12 -0600
Subj: Re: SHK 12.0678 Re: Callous Cash Payment Values
[4] From: Marcus Dahl <
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Date: Thursday, 22 Mar 2001 10:36:36 EST
Subj: Re: SHK 12.0678 Re: Callous Cash Payment Values
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: R. A. Cantrell <
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Date: Wednesday, 21 Mar 2001 07:30:46 -0600
Subject: Re: Callous Cash Payment Values
Comment: SHK 12.0678 Re: Callous Cash Payment Values
I've been recently and rightly accused of being a scold, so I'll try to
tone it down a bit. Would the person who blithely posited the equation
Usurer=Capitalist please try to exhibit an argument sustaining this
presumption. This rhetorically: further, please try to isolate the
source of this presumption. Who told you that?
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sean Lawrence <
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Date: Wednesday, 21 Mar 2001 08:08:52 -0800
Subject: 12.0678 Re: Callous Cash Payment Values
Comment: Re: SHK 12.0678 Re: Callous Cash Payment Values
Clifford writes:
> While almost everyone would still
> claim that other values continue to exist in the world, such claims are
> effectively negated if all one's labor is directed towards materialistic
> ends.
I might add that they're even more effectively negated if all one's
justifications, if all one's theories about society, philosophy, etc.,
come down to materialism. In this case, one's actual non-accumulative
life would just become one long act of hypocrisy.
> I'm afraid that your preferences will
> become increasingly incompatible as the self destructive principle
> inherent in capitalist economics (also identified by Marx) inevitably
> makes moral investment increasingly unprofitable. Not only does much of
> the wealth generated by American capitalism depend on sweat shop
> exploitation and poisoning of the natural environment, but the
> accelerating accumulation of wealth in the hands of the biggest
> capitalists will drive the rest of the world into a depression and bring
> the whole machine to a crashing halt.
Not quite. This is the problem with the label of 'late capitalism', the
assumption that capitalism is inherently hell-bent on its own
destruction and that we're living in the final days. In fact, as more
wealth is generated, we become increasingly concerned with 'moral
investment'. Actual chattel slavery became unacceptable as it became
unnecessary. An 'ethical' investor (I think there's a fundamental
incompatibility in these terms, though not the one you detect) would be
ahead of the curve on what will be abolished next.
> Unless you're a multinational bank, or can afford to drop forty billion
> dollars like Bill Gates, I would advise (as I have for some time)
> limiting your exposure to the fluctuations of the capitalist markets.
On the other hand, wealth has continued to grow on the longue dur